Sunday, September 26, 2004

this is one of those weekends that i really don't want to be documented, through blogger or otherwise. i guess it was important in some ways... but guess what? you don't get to hear about them. i leave you with but one final discovery this evening:
i could live on mac and cheese.
(and if you just GOTTA have more juicy tidbits from my life, you can read my post from a week ago which i finally finished.)

Thursday, September 23, 2004

i LOVE that LA has been playing pixies in her car nonstop. i'm so very proud. tonight was the scribbler potluck dinner thingie, which was awkward at first but in the end, more entertaining than i thought it would be. i'm going to go see what homework i have to do, and try to avoid all of it. i haven't done a cent of stuff at home this week, so why stop now? i'm going to fail all my classes anyway. bwahahaha. i am sooooo full of food and people chow. holy god.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

i've decided i really have to go to college at columbia in chicago because look what i could major in: motherfucking SOUND. do you know how great it would be to say "yes, i am a sound major." oh lord. i'm going to explode.
so i'm supposed to be finding kimya dawson (1/2 of the moldy peaches) a place to play here on november 2. if anyone knows how to go about booking a show or who to contact, could they please let me know? this is very important to me, seeing as kimya dawson is a genius and i need her in my life.
tomorrow is ani difranco. i need to go get feministic and listen to some rage. if anyone needs tickets, the only place to get them now is at the cat's in cordova. brock has to go pick up mouse's and eileen's from there tonight, if i'm not mistaken, and if you'd like him to do the same for you, give him a call.
on saturday morning while i was sound asleep, my father purchased his and my tickets for voodoo, without my knowledge. so the buying-in-one-big-clump thing is out.... whether for good or ill, though, the man is definitely going. so if you need him to talk to your parents and convince them to let you go because he's obviously a very qualified chaperone, he'll do the do. also, i'll definitely be making a college visit, although i'm not sure what day. so if you can't be there for that, we need to make other ride arrangements. let's do it up. i'm REALLY REALLY REALLY excited!!!!!

Monday, September 20, 2004

today was one of the worst mondays. it felt like the week should be much farther along, and it was really hard to remember that brandon was here just yesterday. he's barely been back home for 24 hours. i wish he wasn't there. nothing makes sense. i'm really unhappy and uncomfortable, and i hate talking about it. today i decided that i would like to be a more private person, but knowing me, it probably won't work out.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

i've just had an absolutely crazy, very great, yet very surreal 6 days. tuesday brandon got here at about midnight, and we sort of accidentally stayed up all night. his family, who were also evacuating new orleans and heading to memphis, got into town at 5:30am and came to escort him to the house of the friend they were staying with. the plan was for him to stay there until his family left on friday, and then hopefully stay with my family for the weekend. however, as brandon found out 45 minutes later on wednesday morning, this home for refugees was also being occupied by another new orleans family, and was located in olive branch. therefore, brandon showed up at my house after school and never left. thanks to my wonderful parents, who will apparently take in any stray. he, brock, morgan, and i hung out at home for a while before heading to pick up tarah and eating a lovely dinner at memphis pizza cafe. LA met up with us as well, but she and brock had to go home before tarah, brandon, and i went to play in the park and go out for dessert. brandon and i went to sonic, where i got the goddamn thickest vanilla shake of my lifetime and we sat forever listening to the tribe called quest album i had recieved in the mail that day. which is great, by the way. back at home, i did no homework and got little sleep. brandon was feeling guilty about invading our home, so as a favor to my parents, he drove morgan and i to school on thursday. he was supposed to go to the zoo with his family, but something happened and he just wasted a bunch of time driving all the way to olive branch and back out to my house a couple times? there was some craziness that happened and it turned out that he was supposed to pick us up from school, which i didn't know, and had katherine drive me home. which turned out to be nice because she got to meet brandon for real and inhale cloves with us on the patio. that was nice although i wish politics hadn't come up... that's okay because i think they still like each other. mom took me to get my new reading glasses and also to get my regular ones adjusted. when i got home, katherine had gone home, so i bunkered down to do some homework. morgan and brandon kept me company, and made sure i got very little work done. they went to pick up some backyard burgers for us, and i managed to complete six physics problems. eventually i gave up so that brandon and i could go crazy. LA came over in the middle of it to work on something for art class, and while we loved seeing her, i think she was annoyed that it took her so long to get her stuff done. morgan also was working on an art project, and i had a hard time sitting still for her to draw me. sorry, guys. i hope you both get an A from the brilliant mr. berlin. once everybody was done working, brandon and i listened to kid a and beck and had a lovely night. he took us to school in the morning, this time because our parents couldn't. he came to lunch, and i got to sort of show him off. he let me eat half of his sonic toaster sandwich, and life was good. i think he had a good time, even though lunch is so short and i felt guilty that he had to drive all the way out to school just for a few measly minutes with my posse. i tried to convince him to come to all three lunches, but he wouldn't. oh well. he had to come BACK to pick us up. morgan had to do something with ms. kitts, so while we were waiting, we sat in front of the school listening to iggy pop and smoking cloves. it was the real punk rock. when we got home, we lay around on the futon forever waiting for plans to get made. eventually we hopped in the car, turned on the fugees, and went to pick up laylee and alice. on the way we saw about 23957023575320 cops and they stuck around to make a theme of the night. it was pretty weird, but we had a really wholesome day so nobody minded. it was just damn weird. anyway, we couldn't think of a goddamn thing to do so we drove all the way back to midtown and got milkshakes from java. everything was blocked off crazy because they were setting up for the cooper-young festival. being at java was sort of depressing, but nobody really suggested leaving. we ended up buying this cd called "nose songs" by a local guy named müller who uses melodies to bob dylan songs and writes his own lyrics. we then decided we were hungry, and somehow the collective BRILLIANCE of alanna, brandon, laylee, and alice made us decide to go to molly's where we ordered literally nothing but chips, salsa, bean dip, and cheese dip. SWEET LORD. we all felt bloody AWFUL after that, as you can imagine, so we high-tailed it home. we all lay on the futon in the dark and cuddled. brandon and i listened to the cd while laylee and alice gossiped and giggled. LA finally brought don over for us to meet him at like 8 something and we dragged ourselves out of bed to rent a movie at black lodge. it took us forever, but we finally came home happy and ready with "heathers." in the middle of it, kevin showed up with motherfucking william, who was in town for his mom's birthday. we turned off the movie and talked to them for a few strange minutes before they left to explore the city's changes. we put the movie back on, and alice fell asleep quickly afterwards. it ended some time after 1am, and we drove laylee and alice back home and saw 239057352 more cops on the way. i slept allllll morning long-- brandon didn't wake me up until 12, probably prompted by my father, to tell me that i had to be at theatreworks in an hour. the first rehearsal for the show was three hours long, but it went pretty well and i had a good time. even though i was anxious about getting home the whole time. if we weren't going to miss two ensemble rehearsals for voodoo, i would've tried to get out of that one. for brandon's sake, of course. he stayed at home and watched raising arizona and rock n roll high school. back at home, we sat around on the couch for a while before heading over to the cooper-young festival. to be honest, i don't know why we went, other than to see people. i don't think we stopped at any booth for more than a minute, and we only stopped at about three. we just sort of mosied along hoping to glimpse a familiar face. we did a good job of that, but then we never really talked to anyone for that long, unless they ended up joining our procession. it was a really weird concept to even be there that way. we eventually made it into java, after latching onto brock, eileen, mouse, and some friend of somebody's who i don't know. in java we found becca, daniell, laylee, kevin, and william who we sort of sort of kind of attempted to make future plans with, but did a horrible job. brandon and i got really hungry but didn't want to eat at the festival. with yet another craving for pizza coming on, we grabbed morgan and high-tailed it over to memphis pizza cafe where we had a strange meal because i made morgan feel to guilty to buy anything since she'd forgotten money. i'm a horrible person and i'm sorry. then she had to go home to work or something? we dropped her off back at home. we went on a quest for greenery and ended up on the metal floor of peabody park's jungle gym. so that was a failure, but we had managed to enjoy ourselves nonetheless. i love the sound of trains going by. we then rushed to studio to see garden state, which i had already seen, but brandon hadn't and he loved it. i was really glad. plus it was sort of a perfect goodbye movie. at home we listened to julie ruin and cat power before going to bed way too late. we woke up at 7:30 and layed around for a while in my tent. we went to breakfast at IHOP and pretended to be a pair of happy collegiate artists taking joy in life's simple pleasures-- coffee and cigarettes. it takes me forever to eat so we were there for an hour or so? i apologize to everyone who has ever had to take a meal with me. back at home we had a second anti-climactic ending to our surreal little venture. we sat around for a while burning cds. i mean come on. but seriously, folks, it was a good time. brandon left at about 1pm, rolling away towards union inside a round, green little car. he didn't look back, and i couldn't look on. i went with the family to see sky capitan of the world tomorrow which was a very silly, but very beautiful movie that took my mind off things until i got brandon's home-safe call. new orleans is still above water. it didn't even rain.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

today at 5pm louisiana state university closed classes for the week. today at 6:20 brandon ledet called to tell me he was on the interstate heading for a city called memphis. today at approximately 3am, a tremor of happiness will shudder through your dreams.

Monday, September 13, 2004

these friends did not visit me last night. i haven't slept in what feels like six years. i'm about to go take a nap though. brett and i stayed up all night talking about who knows what, and now we're going to become chimney sweeps. it's fucking brilliant. brandon and i are expectantly awaiting hurricane ivan. i can't think straight enough to write this post right now. gwahabaha.

Sunday, September 12, 2004

you said it, ben.
i just decided i want to drink like 6 dr. peppers today. it's going to be great. i have lots of work to do that i can't bring myself to do. i want to die. thus, caffeinated assistance.

we REALLY need to discuss plans for the upcoming voodoo music fest before it's too damn late to buy tickets and shit! i want to get this together so that we can do things like convince people's parents to let them go and get a place to stay in new orleans and all those kinds of things.
1. who wants to go? we need a head count to know how many people we have to accomdate for.
2. who will drive? my dad has volunteered, and although i'd rather go without him, it will probably help the case of many of you kids whose parents wouldn't be too happy about us going unchaperoned. brandon and LA also volunteered on separate occassions to drive... are you still willing? could you make it happen? this is imperative.
3. how many days do you want to go? one day is $40. i'm sorry this is so expensive, but think about all the great bands you'll be seeing. most of them are on saturday, this is true. if you only want to go on saturday (or if, like alice and katherine, you only have time for that) we will have to make different arrangements for that.
4. i think my mom wants me to use one of my school excused college-visiting days and college-visit, either in new orleans or on the way there. whoever i'm riding with might want to also put that on their agenda for the trip. and also it will make your parents happy.
5. START SAVING YOUR PENNIES. WE ARE HEADED ON A WILD JOURNEY DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI INTO THE DEEP DEEP SOUTH. PREPARE YOURSELF.

as always, i must inform you all about the upcoming events of the our own voice theatre troupe, although i don't think i've ever encouraged someone to actually do that shit because of these little posts. oh well. to be honest, i only know that it's even happening because of my dad. i can't find any online confirmation that the auditions are even happening, but since my dad is a board member of the group, i trust him. SO without further ado:
The Passion of Joni Dark
Theatreworks, 2085 Monroe on Overton Square
Saturday and Sunday afternoon (times unknown as of right now. call me and i'll let you know.)
the play requires LOTS OF KIDDIES since it's the story of joan of arc set in a modern teenage psych ward. i promised i would bring friends. these plays are really fun! you will meet new people! you can goof around! stage fright isn't even an issue since the theatre is so teeny tiny. an our own voice show don't require a lot of time commitment, and the director will be REALLY understanding if you have to miss rehearsals. you'll only have a couple practices a week up until production week. it's great. pleeeeeeeeeeeease try to come. auditions are really fun, even if you decide not to do the play. the entire idea of an oov audition is for the actors to see if the show is something they actually want to do. and you will have fun. please come.
sorry for the desperation.

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

last night i fell asleep doing physics. dad came in and woke me up, i pushed my homework off the futon, and went to sleep. today i missed two tests, but i don't care. i feel a lot better, although my eyes are all dilated from going to the eye doctor again. i did get my new glasses and i can see a good deal better, but everything's still weird from the dilation.

they look completely back, but the frame is actually tortoise-shell patterned brown. there's green on the inside, and purple on the edges. they're very odd, and i'm still getting used to them. these are the biggest glasses i've ever had. they're only my third pair, but still.

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

i just got back from a fucking 2-hour trip to the optometrist. hopefully i'll have my new glasses tomorrow, but they also found cornea damage and there's confusion with my stigmatism. it was all very horrible, and i also now need reading glasses. apparently VISION is the reason for my constant post-school headaches and why i can't focus on tests and why reading makes me tired. god damn it. i hate life.

Monday, September 06, 2004

my parents just found out that i left our family video camera in brittany's car over a month ago, and it's still at her house in mississippi. i should've told them immediately when it happened, but i thought i was going to get it back when the next time i saw her. that didn't happen and i haven't been down in mississippi to pick it up, nor have they mailed it back. so now i can't do anything ever again until the camera is back in my hands. i am not happy.

Sunday, September 05, 2004

so i found out that my reasons for being angry/sad about girls' night being cancelled were the wrong reasons. it turned out for the better since laylee was feeling sick last night. yesterday sallis came and picked me up in the early afternoon. we got milkshakes at java cabana, he bought the new bjork album, and he got to meet the poor nameless puppy. alice and katherine met us at sonic and we headed downtown to the memphis music and heritage festival. we only knew where one of the stages was, and it was a little late for shopping around. we watched this goofy guy play the piano, ran around peabody place, and went back to the stage where a really hysterical rap group was performing. some guys filmed us for their public access show. as we were leaving, we passed the place where becca and laylee were volunteering. we heard a REALLY great band that sounded something like andrew bird's bowl of fire. the crazy thing is that we came in during the middle of them playing "st. james infirmary." it was weird that i recognized it, being so familiar with danny barker's version, in which he adds a bunch of awesome lines and side notes. actually everyone should hear that version because it's the ultimate. it was really great, and i hated having to leave. sallis took us home, where katherine, alice, and i had a totally awesome girly night as a trio. we stuffed ourselves with cinnamon tea, popcorn, and java chip ice cream. we talked about boyzzz and morocco and great shit. we listened to lots of music and watched some music videos and rolled around on the futon. it was great. i missed seeing LA and laylee though. we stayed up till after 5am, which was a bad idea. ah well. katherine woke up at 9:30 for church. when she came home, alice and i eventually dragged ourselves out of bed and went to breakfast at ck's. i drank too many cups of coffee with sweet-n-low. something inspired me to order the paul bunyan breakfast. do not ask me why. i stuffed myself absolutely full. after a long meal, katherine took me back home. dad immediately took me to lauren's house so that we could work on our math project-- it's a powerpoint presentation for pre-calculs about fucking PEEPS. i took a nap in lauren's super-comfy bed before katherine, alice, and brett picked us up around 7 to head down to south memphis. there's really no words to describe things that i would like to say, but there's at least this: we listened to elephunk (my new favorite album) about 5 times, ate a second breakfast at ihop, found a little piece of the apocalypse, inhaled a cornucopia of chemicals, observed the loading of a barge, befriended men of the mississippi, used a crane as a jungle gym, got covered in oil and sugar, explored a man named harley's boathouse and got sexually harassed by his creepy red neck brother. president's island is my new favorite place. i love the mississippi. i love my city.

Saturday, September 04, 2004

last night all plans were somehow abandoned and alice and ended up at home alone all night. it was really great because we had time to hang out and talk and be wonderful. i absolutely LOVE that girl!!!! it was also funny because she and i were hanging out while laylee and LA were hanging out. our group of Girls was separated into the "Al" and the "La" couples. ho ho ho. i love that kind of thing. the kind of thing i do NOT love is that our girls night for this evening is cancelled. it makes me angry and sad. hopefully i'll make up for it by hanging out with sallis and katherine and alice today. hooray!

Friday, September 03, 2004

This boy came quietly out of the wood work, and I was caught off guard. No one before him ever really saw me, with my unruly hair, rumpled skirt, and no trace of self-confidence. That was the life I had learned.

He stole what he could –– the minutes off my cell phone, all my days of summer, midnight in my grandma's kitchen, one desperate hug. Of course I ran. The only thing I knew to do was run. No one taught me how to be pretty, how to be loved. I became afraid to learn. Just told myself to keep my muscles pumping to keep me out of reach.

Well. I may have overdone it. I pulled back 400 miles, building the best defense: a separation of two entire states (measured by 7,877,696 people), the length of a muddy river (equaling eternity). A girl needs her space.

But he couldn't drop it. I couldn't understand why he kept pushing against my limitations, what drove him to stand as watchman of my night and day. Turns out, it was only that he knew me. He knew my legs were not long or strong enough to keep me running forever. How could I have known that he would whittle my wooden heart, gently carve away the rough places in me?

By November he was biting at my heels like an obsessive French dog, hanging on the curtain of my voice, and imagining the curl of my hip. Without my permission. I never wanted to be marked, claimed, owned. But now I look at myself, firmly planted in my sneakers and undeniably connected to some puppy of a boy. He lead me out of my darkness and pulled me into his wood. Some very needy roots sprouted out of me and met up with his –– connecting and intertwining finally at the halfway point on the brown bank of the Mississippi. My limbs fork out like awkward branches, pocked and uneven bark covering completely my milk pale skin. He places his hand on my chest to admire his craftsmanship: heart beating full and sticky with some sound resembling love.

Thursday, September 02, 2004

1. new puppy is ADORABLE. she has no name yet, but we're working on it.
2. home at the end of the world is a ridiculously bad film.
3. "five years" by david bowie is the song of the week, and may very well be the best song of all time.
4. i love my sister and her friends.
5. it really sucks that today is amelia's last in memphis.